Americans generally acknowledge the powerful influence of broadcast and print media within the United States, sometimes without really understanding how that power accumulates internationally at the same time. As more corporations extend their control across many media industries--acquiring publishing houses, newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations, movie production companies, advertising agencies, cable systems and telecommunications networks--ownership of the various means of collecting and transmitting information becomes more concentrated. With satellite feeds and fiber optic networks, political boundaries almost disappear, and countries can lose control over their national identity. Information in multiple formats can be transmitted around the world almost instantaneously.

In the following readings, we encourage you to pay attention to the power the media exerts outside rather than inside the United States. Some of that power is political (as is currently the case in the Persian Gulf); some of it is cultural (when the West provides most of the television programming in Third World countries). After reading the selections (and consulting a dictionary about the meaning of unfamiliar words), you might begin thinking about the topic by doing the following:
 

1. Prewrite for five or ten minutes about the characteristics of a village. If you have lived in an isolated area, describe the people and their relationships with one another. What good things or bad things happen over time in villages?
2. If you feel you need additional information, the full text of articles we have excerpted here are on reserve in the library, along with some books an global communications and the power of the media. Sometimes skimming additional materials will help to expand and intensify your interest in the topic. Consult Infotrac, Newsbank, or the pamphlet file. Watch television news programs. Share what you find with other members of your class.
3. Find friends, relatives, or members of your class who have lived in other countries. Discuss with them how locally- produced television programming or movies differ from those produced in other countries (especially in the United States). if you regularly watch foreign films or television programming originating from other countries, describe how they are different from program originating in the United States.
4. Listen to "We are the World" or Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire." What kind of values are being advanced (explicitly or implicitly) in these songs? What difference does it make that one of the first Western corporations to set up business in Moscow was MacDonalds?

In an essay, "Welcome to the Global Village" [Time May 29, 1989], Lance Morrow explores the contradictory elements of this new global village; we experience, he says, "a sense of sunlight and elegy at the same time, of glasnost and claustrophobia." The questions for the final exam all address this contradiction.

In English 101 this semester, you thought and wrote about topics in at least four ways. You investigated the causes or effects leading to or following from certain actions; you grouped similar things into categories or divided a single thing into its parts; you looked at similarities or differences between two things; and you advanced a thesis, supporting it with examples or reasons. In addition, some students defined terms, explained a process, described an object or situation, or argued a position. All of these ways of thinking will help in preparing for the final exam.

During the final exam period, you will be assigned two of the following four topics and allowed to choose one of the two. Write a well-developed, multiple paragraph essay in response to it. Make sure that your essay addresses the issue raised and follows the organizational pattern that is identified.
 

1. What are the elements that make up the global village? [analysis by division]
2. Will the increase in media power have a positive or negative effect on democracy? [Analysis of effect]
3. How are media power and military power different? [Contrast]
4. Global marketing sells Western values as well as products. [Thesis with supporting examples]